The six days passed in an odd sort of ecstasy for Tian. Odd, because he knew what he was feeling wasn’t entirely natural. Fire was the element of joy, red the color of supreme good fortune. Losing himself in the flames of his own fiery qi made everything a happy occasion. It became exhausting. Sometimes, you need to just be flat.

Tian healed and rested in the now pure-qi Fire Cavern, then experienced the element of fire within him in the Null Cavern. He would stand in the dark, admiring the lamp in his heart until his meridians screamed from the qi deprivation. Back and forth, as much as he could stand. His cultivation had never been faster. Tian felt like he was eating his way through Level Six. Just ripping big bites of qi from the air and chewing it down as his cultivation turned consumption into strength.

If the Water Cavern had been about flow and providing meaning to what was already there, the Fire Cavern was about illumination. About seeing yourself. Tian nearly laughed himself sick when he realized how much of his behavior was based on avoiding emotional pain by accepting physical pain. He couldn’t imagine changing, either. The rewards were just much, much too rich. His brothers and sisters brought him so much joy.

One interesting thing he noticed was that the bones in his storage ring did, in fact, come flying out and return to their resting place. They became quite hard to spot, then simply became part of the cavern floor. Not invisible, they were subtly covered and absorbed. The ring stayed. Which was odd, as it had been trying to leave before.

The sixth day came and Tian was once again launched through the wall. The ring stayed behind. Tian had no idea what to make of it all. The ring stayed then left. Maybe it didn’t quite get what it wanted. Just another mystery of the Six Turn Caverns.

“Oh, nice. Wood Qi ghhaaak. HSSGGKRK!” Tian fell to his knees, clawing at his throat. His lungs were filling with something, something that was blocking out the air and crushing his organs against his ribs. The wood qi was running riot. Something was growing in him, and he didn’t know what it was, or particularly care to find out.

Tian immediately threw his cultivation into action. The qi was first milled down by Advent of Spring, then again by the Hell Suppressing Sutra. For someone as strongly wood aligned as Tian was, it took an embarrassingly long time to bring his body back into order. It was stupid. It was so damn stupid that something as pitifully easy as Wood would nearly kill him!

“Of all the stupid fucking things! Wood! WOOD! Wood is nothing! Wood isn’t shit! I’m going to piss on trees every chance I get from now on!” Tian swore. Then took a deep breath for the novelty of it, held it for an extra moment, then explosively exhaled.

“Excess wood qi in the liver leads to anger, right Grandpa.”

That’s what your books said, yes. Admittedly, they were talking about diagnosing Virulent Blue Ring Orchid Rot.

Tian nodded and forcibly brought his temper under control. When Wood was balanced, so was the mood. Which, he realized, might pose some particular challenges for him.

There was a bamboo shoot in the middle of the room. Tian didn’t know why. Well, he did know why, it was the qi spirit. But why a qi spirit would take the form of a bamboo shoot in a cave deep underground, he didn’t know. Bamboo did grow awfully fast. Maybe that was the reason. He really thought it would be a dragon, though.

Wood’s one of the trickier elements, if you ask me.

“Why’s that, Grandpa?”

It’s a transition. A state of growth. A seed accumulates energy then there is a period of change where it transforms. It absorbs, then grows again. And again. And again. Until it reaches the height it’s going to reach and starts focusing on reproduction instead. Reproduction can be considered another sort of growth, very broadly speaking. Wood is a verb not a noun is what I am trying to say. More than just ‘is,’ wood qi is something that ‘is happening.’

“Huh. By comparison, the other elements are a lot more fixed and stable.”

Yep. Kind of. Maybe not so much water and fire. Look, Daoism gets really annoying when you get into the details, and even more annoying when you realize that the Daoists know that and are completely okay with it.

“Grandpa… I am a Daoist.”

I said what I said. Riddle me this, young Daoist- a bee and a flower. Which is yin and which is yang? Do keep in mind that worker bees, the ones doing the pollinating, and penetrating, are female. Do also keep in mind that flowers don’t always exactly line up with human reproductive organs. We aren’t even going to touch the insanity that is the life cycle of the fig wasp. That’s for ADVANCED daoists. Good luck, have fun!

Tian locked up for a moment. He was forced to admit that he didn’t even know where to begin with that one. The elemental alignment of specific plants, certainly. The interactions between plants and bees? And what even was a fig wasp?

“I have no idea. Sorry, Grandpa.”

Don’t be sorry, you haven’t done anything wrong. The correct answer is they both are both, depending on how and when you look at it. Any attempt to narrowly classify things runs into this problem really quickly.

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“Huh. What’s the alternative?”

Not a conversation for today. Or maybe ever. Focus, Tian. You should be able to get a lot out of this chamber.

Tian was less sure about that. If wood was about growth then he was already there. He was all about growing. He was all about stretching out and becoming something greater than he was before. Accumulation then birth? He was one hundred percent on board with that. No big revelation needed.

“Could I get a- GHHKRK! Koghfwbbeerggf. Hok Hok HOK HORF!” Tian furiously cycled Advent of Spring while trying to vomit out the contents of both his stomach and lungs. The good news was that he hadn’t eaten anything other than fasting pills in the last month. The bad news was that whatever was stuck in him did not intend to leave without a fight.

It seemed that the wood qi had only been suppressed, not completely destroyed. Tian reached out for his fire qi and quickly dragged it over to his lungs. His dao of fire may be based on compassion, but “compassionate” wasn’t the same as being stupid. Whatever was growing there could burn for him.

I did say that Wood Qi is a verb, not a noun. It is the element of growing, not “will grow.”

“The Advent of Spring is all about endless growth, now that you say it.”

It is indeed. And while Snake Head Vine Body isn’t, it is all about flexibility and constant motion. Another Wood Qi trait.

Tian slowed down and paid attention to the cultivation art. It felt more lively today. Like there was more to it than just providing his body with wood aspected vital energy. Perhaps there was something in the air. Literally.

“What did you say the energy in these rooms had? Dao charm?”

WHY YES! YES THEY DO!

Grandpa sounded downright gleeful. He was being unusually chatty since they arrived in the Six Turn Caverns. The benefits to Tian’s foundation from cultivating in here must be enormous. Even more than he was realizing.

“So by really focusing on the feeling of my arts making use of vital energy, I will get a much clearer understanding of different aspects of the Dao of Wood?”

That would be quite a good outcome, yes. A very achievable outcome. And since you can tolerate this room a lot better than the fire cavern, there isn’t really a rush to find the Null Chamber, is there?

Tian smiled and got to work.

Water added life and meaning, but wood was the structure and driving force. That was the deduction he made in the Water Cavern. Time to put it to the test. He started his usual meditation practice, beginning in the Lotus pose and slowly drawing in the qi. Letting it cycle through his meridians, filling his lower dantian before being converted into vital energy and being sent to nourish his body. The Supreme Virtue Hell Suppressing Sutra had its role to play as well, but Tian had never really fully understood just how it worked. He set it aside once again, and just focused on the Wood vital energy surging through him.

Vital energy, as he had been reminded again and again, was just another form of qi. It was specifically the qi that strengthened and nourished the body. But what did that mean for Wood Qi? Flexibility, strength but not as much as some elements. Longevity. Healing, which was another way of saying growing back what was broken. It also meant competition.

Things kept trying to grow in his lungs. He wasn’t entirely sure what. Fungus, maybe. He remembered Grandpa telling him one of the reasons he couldn’t breathe well as a kid was a fungal infection in his lungs. Just some little plant-fungus thing trying to grow… which meant he had to die. Or that giant cosmic tree that he had imagined. It sounded amazing, but how many things could live in its shadow? How many plants would be starved of water and light as the tree took it all?

Balanced against that was the forest as a system. It was one of the things both Grandpa Jun and Brother Wong had taught him- nothing grows in isolation. Everything is connected. Things grow together and often support each other. A million-million different components make up the forest, but there is only one forest. Growing perpetually. Even if it’s mature, it’s still growing. Things die or are damaged, or the forest just wants to spread. Wood isn’t static. Growth definitely isn’t. But the change isn’t always obvious.

The Wood Element isn’t a noun, it’s a verb. Tian breathed, and watched the vital energy seep into his flesh.

He really was suited for the wood element. He looked like he was standing still, but he was always growing. He worked with everyone, but would fight like hell for what was his.

Snake Head Vine Body was an absolute mess. Tian had been so fixated on growth, he had neglected that flexibility was a core component of the element. Flexibility without coordination was just chaos. Tian tried to emulate the Turtle-Snake from the Water Cavern, incorporating Snake Head Vine Body into his palm arts. It was all still too chaotic. Trying to cycle two arts was like trying to breathe two different ways at the same time. He was confident it was possible. He just didn’t know how yet.

“I don’t suppose you have any tricks to help me with that, do you Grandpa?”

For the way you cultivate? Unfortunately, the answer is practice. The absolute best thing for you right now is that Null Chamber. It lets you see exactly where and how your vital energy is moving. Before we get to that, though, there is something I would like you to do. Focus on your pinky fingers.

Tian looked down at his hands. His pinkies were still missing. The vital energy that should have gone through there and returned to the cycle seemed to just… leak out. Like there was some kind of impossibly subtle barrier around the flesh of his fingers that stopped them from regrowing. He could feel the stumps growing and getting stronger along with everything else, but that was it.

I expected your body to be completely restored after the first reconstruction. I’d have bet every scrap of energy I had that it would be completely fine after the second one. What’s more, young Fu told you the truth- Advent of Spring should have regrown those fingers years ago. That you are being divinely screwed with is old news. The how and the why are the real mystery.

“You really don’t have any ideas?”

I have… one. Just get your head down and grind in here for the next four days. Day five and six will be for the void chamber training. Focus on learning as much about each element as you can and absorbing as much of that Dao Charm, that… essence of the element… as you can. No promises I can get it done by the time we finish our tour in the Six Turns Cavern, but let us say we are filling the warehouses. I’m not quite ready to run wild, but while you are gathering dao charm, I’m gathering energy. And when I make my move, I guarantee the heavens will tremble.